NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE Images – October 17, 2012

– What Is It? http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_027912_1770

This image reveals some very curious topography: an elevated mesa with lobate margins and a patterned surface, connected to a shallow depression.

– Curiosity Tracks and Descent Stage Debris http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_028678_1755

This is another HiRISE image acquired to provide more coverage of the landing region in the narrow color swath.

– Angular Blocks http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_028812_1485

This image covers an impact crater on the northeast rim of Hellas basin, with excellent exposures of bedrock layers.

– Lobate Flow Features East of Hellas Region http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_029035_1455

These features are considered to be a depositional sink for water ice-rich deposits falling from the atmosphere during periods of high obliquity in the past several million years.

All of the HiRISE images are archived here: http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/

Information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is online at http://www.nasa.gov/mro. The mission is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, of Denver, is the prime contractor and built the spacecraft. HiRISE is operated by the University of Arizona. Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp., of Boulder, Colo., built the HiRISE instrument.